Chapter 16
Rikard
Hannalinde was an exceptional student. She took to her mind-wall training with dedicated enthusiasm, and he found himself delaying his departure for the office and returning early so he might coach and encourage her.
However, his growing desire for private audience with his wife led to the eyrie feeling overrun.
Not only were his parents often hovering about, he had to contend with her gregarious human friend interrupting and now Lucan’s perpetual presence.
On this particular evening, his friend arrived at the eyrie just after sundown with a clay jug of mead under each arm. “From the Head Keeper’s private stores,” he announced to Roul, setting the jugs on the dining table with a theatrical clunk. “I might have implied the Nadir requested it.”
Rikard made a noise of disapproval. “I did not and would not.”
“You ought to enjoy the privileges of your office. Fallen gods, there are few.”
“I might for official business, but this is far from that.”
Lucan uncorked the first jug and inhaled, his eyes closing with rapture. “Clover honey. Black cherry. A finish like a sunrise over the sea. This is wasted on official business, Rikard. This is a vintage for friends.”
“Hear, hear,” Roul said, collecting a few tankards to fill even as Cléa clucked her tongue in disapproval.
“We’re going to a gathering with the Zenith in an hour, and you haven’t oiled your horns,” she reminded him, prying the tankards from his fingers. “You don’t have time to soak your head in mead.”
He grumbled and followed her to their chamber just as Carlijn appeared from hers with her hair freshly arranged and cheeks freshly pinched. “Did I hear the word mead? Are we drinking tonight? Tell me we are.”
“We are drinking on the balcony,” Lucan announced grandly. “Under the stars, like civilized creatures.”
Rikard snorted.
“No need to join us if you lack good taste. You can keep Hanna company in the corner.” Lucan was treading very close to disrespect, speaking of his mate in that tone.
He glanced over at her to see if she’d taken offense, but it seemed she hadn’t overheard.
Hannalinde sat in an alcove where she stitched by lamplight, occasionally bracing one hand against the small of her back with a wince.
The hatchling was growing so large that it strained her small human form.
She wore a rose-colored shawl over her dress, and her pale hair hung loose over one shoulder.
She spotted him staring at her and lifted her nearly invisible brows. “What is it?”
“Lucan is staging a party on our balcony, and we have been uninvited.”
Hanna’s mouth twisted wryly. “It isn’t much of a party, then, with only one guest.”
“I only uninvited him,” Lucan corrected as he re-entered to ferry bread and cheese and smoked fish out to the balcony, making the most of Rikard’s hospitality. “Come sit with us. Bastien said he would stop by later. Friends, some mead, and moonlight…what more can you ask for?”
“You could ask for some sense,” a large, green moth near Hanna’s lamp wheezed. Lucan snapped in its direction, surprising Hanna so she jumped and stuck her finger with her needle. Tears formed in her eyes as she popped her finger in her mouth.
“I wasn’t snapping at you,” Lucan said sheepishly. “I was trying for the moth.”
“Out,” Rikard growled, pointing to the balcony. He rushed to Hanna’s side, dodging Lucan’s hasty exit. “Are you all right?” He tugged her finger from her mouth, peering closely at the spot where she was injured. It was small but deep, judging from the amount of red blood welling to the surface.
Hanna blinked back her tears. “It’s just a prick, nothing to worry about. I’ve done it more times than I can count. There’s a little roll of clean linen in my sewing basket if you don’t mind fetching it for me.”
Rikard retrieved it and knelt beside her to wrap her finger. “I’m sorry you were hurt. Lucan is an idiot who listens too much to the moths.”
“I wish I could hear them. I always wonder what they’re saying.”
“Well, you shouldn’t. They’re incredibly stupid and usually rude.”
Hanna giggled, which made something in his chest flip. “You jest. Everyone in the Tower listens to the moths. They must have something valuable to tell.”
“I’ll repeat everything they say, and you’ll quickly change your mind.”
She sat forward, a spark in her eyes. “Would you? I’d like that. What did the green one say to Lucan?”
He smirked. “It was questioning his intelligence.”
She giggled again gleefully, her whole face lighting up to be let in on the joke. What a change from the somber, terrified woman who’d begged for his help in the Nadir’s office.
He extended a hand to her. “Perhaps we should attend Lucan’s little party after all.”
“Don’t you have to go to work?” She put her hand in his and let him pull her to standing.
“I find myself quite compelled by the company to remain.”
Her fair cheeks flushed to match her shawl, and she looped her arm through his as they made their way out to join their friends.
Carlijn clapped excitedly when she saw them, patting the blanket to encourage Hannalinde to sit beside her.
He had not visited the balcony in some time, Rikard realized.
It was not useful to him now that he could not fly, so he usually avoided it, but it provided a stunning view of a moonlit Solvantis, its lanterns punctuating the dark like scattered embers.
Hanna began to lower herself gingerly to the floor, and Rikard, realizing her pregnant state made such contortions difficult, rushed to her aid.
Lucan blinked, staring between the two of them with a dismayed expression. “Oh no. No. It can’t be! Am I losing you so soon? Will I never see you at the tavern again because you’ll be chained to a hatchling’s cradle?”
Rikard barked a laugh, settling down next to Hanna, who gave him a fond look when his arm pressed against hers.
He wished his wings were not bound already so he could wrap one around her shoulders.
She might not mind their tattered state.
“Have you only just realized that she’s with child?
You didn’t notice that she grows rounder by the day? ”
“I thought she was better fed since your mating.” Lucan pulled a comical frown when Carlijn laughed at him, too. Shaking his head, he poured them all generous tankards of mead, grumbling, “How was I to know?”
“You could open your eyes,” said the green moth, which had followed them out to wheel around the exterior lantern. “But when has a gargoyle ever seen what was right in front of him?”
Lucan made a show of lunging for it, but it flapped away lazily, past the edge of the balcony where he could not reach without flying himself.
Hanna giggled at his antics. “Let me guess,” she murmured so only Rikard could hear. “It questioned his intelligence again?”
“Exactly right.”
Bastien appeared then, landing on the balcony rail with precision before folding his enormous wingspan.
He wore his duty harness, polished and buckled, which meant he was headed to his post in the human king’s court after his visit.
His head swiveled toward the jugs of mead, and a look of naked longing crossed his broad, earnest face.
Lucan raised it, a question on his face.
“Don’t tempt me. I report to the palace in an hour.”
“One cup,” Lucan coaxed, already pouring.
“I can’t.” Bastien eased himself onto the plinth at the far corner of the balcony so he could lean against the wall. “The humans are hosting the fae emissary tonight. If I arrive at the palace smelling of mead, the Zenith will have my wings for wall hangings.”
Bastien accepted a piece of bread and a wedge of cheese offered by Carlijn instead, which earned him a jealous growl from Lucan and more laughs from everyone else, and then the five of them settled into easy conversation.
The mead was, as Lucan had promised, extraordinary. As he drank the first cup slowly, watching the others over the rim of the tankard, its warmth spread from Rikard’s throat to his chest and loosened his shoulders. Hanna merely sipped at hers, but Carlijn drank with enthusiasm and little restraint.
It was an approach she shared with Lucan. The two of them sat close on their blanket, her skirts arranged so they spilled into his lap, and she laughed at everything he said. They were alike in many ways, as Rikard and Hanna were. It was natural that an attachment should form.
“A toast,” Lucan declared, raising his second cup of mead. “To the Nadir’s balcony, which has better views than mine and considerably better company.”
“To the mead,” Carlijn added, giggling.
“To the hatchling,” Bastien said, lifting his piece of cheese in Hanna’s direction.
“You knew? Did everyone know but me?” sputtered Lucan.
Bastien snorted. “Yes.”
Rikard raised his cup toward Hanna, too. “To its mother, who had the courage to take me on as a mate.”
Hannalinde’s cheeks flushed. She raised her still-full tankard. “To friends, old and new.”
They drank until the mead ran dry and ate until they emptied the plates. The conversation wandered, loosened by the mead, until Bastien had to leave.
Then the mood shifted. Lucan sang as he often did when he was in his cups, but this was no bawdy drinking song.
He sang a ballad about a moth who fell in love with the moon, remote and strange, and died without ever reaching his true love, no matter how high he flew.
His voice cracked on the high notes, and when he finished, Carlijn had covered her mouth with both hands and Hannalinde dabbed away tears with her shawl.
“You’re a menace,” Rikard told him, a rough catch in his voice betraying his own emotion.
“I’m a delight. Ask anyone.”
Rikard motioned to the two humans. “I did. We agreed on menace.”
“Not me!” Carlijn threw a fig at him in protest. He caught it and ate it with gusto, just to hear Hanna laugh.
Lucan uncorked the second jug, offering them all refills.
He and Hanna refused, but Carlijn held her tankard out for more.
Lucan leaned toward her to refill it, a lock of hair falling across his eyes.
She brushed it away, tucking it behind his horns, and his wing drifted open, curving around her side in a casual touch that lingered.
Carlijn tilted into its shadow, cozying up to him in degrees until her cup was empty again and she was entirely in his lap.
Hannalinde caught Rikard’s eye, her brows rising fractionally. Are you seeing this?
He nodded and shrugged before tossing back the rest of his mead. Lucan could not be stopped and neither could Carlijn, it seemed. Hanna chuckled, shaking her head, agreeing that there was nothing to be done.
“I’m tired. I think I’ll retire for the evening,” she said, struggling to push herself up from the ground. Rikard rose to help her to her feet. When she was fully upright and had smiled her thanks, he turned to the others.
“I should attend my duties with whatever hours are left in the night. Ladies, I thank you for the evening.”
Lucan scoffed. “And not me, when I was the one who provided all the mead and most of the entertainment?”
“My name provided the mead, remember,” Rikard reminded him, feeling irritable.
“Thank you for the song,” Hannalinde said, tempering his harshness with her easy grace. “It was truly lovely.” The warmth in her voice gave him a pang of irrational jealousy.
“Perhaps you should take your leave now,” he said to Lucan.
“Now? When we still have so many hours for gaiety?” Lucan motioned around, mostly at Carlijn, who had nodded off against his chest.
Hanna chuckled, leaning over her friend to rouse her. Carlijn woke with a jolt, blinking in confusion. “You fell asleep. I think we have wrung all the fun we can out of the evening.”
“Are you going to bed? I think I will, too,” Carlijn said, darting a regretful glance at Lucan.
He pouted at her. “You promised to show me the stonework in your chamber, remember? You said it was beautifully carved.”
Rikard sighed as he helped Carlijn to her feet. Sometimes he was thankful his cock didn’t work, because Lucan was clearly at the mercy of his. “She will show you another night, when you have a little more restraint. You were too generous with your pour this time, so she sleeps alone tonight.”
“I might not fall asleep right away,” Carlijn piped in. “I might open the window to enjoy the fresh night air.”
Lucan tilted his head, a mischievous look in his eye. “Might you?”
Hanna trembled on his arm, and it took Rikard a few beats to realize why. As soon as he did, he barked, “No. The window will remain shut and locked, as will the doors. When I say another night, Lucan, I mean it. Go back to your eyrie and enjoy your right hand.”
Lucan might have harmless intentions when he climbed through Carlijn’s window, but the woman was inebriated, in no shape to receive him, however much he had stoked her interest. And, just as important, the thought of any gargoyle entering their eyrie without permission was Hanna’s worst nightmare.
So, with a human on each arm, Rikard turned his back on his oldest friend and made his way inside.